The Left-Handed Marriage

The Left-Handed Marriage, Leigh Buchanan Bienen's debut collection of fiction, ranges widely in subject matter, tone, and locale, from legal drama to domestic comedy, from Kampala and Shanghai to Trenton, New Jersey. In her award-winning story "My Life As a West African Gray Parrot", the domestic comedy is filtered through the consciousness of an aging parrot. In "He Was a Big Boy, Still Is", a dramatic monologue by a white public defender, counseling the mother of a young, mentally impaired black defendant, Bienen's characteristic mix of comedy and pathos sets the tone. A near-fatal accident to a circus performer, in "The Circus Comes to Kampala", transforms two mocking spectators into highly capable, compassionate adults. In "Technician", an ordinary, unemployed, young Trenton man is recruited as a state executioner. Here and throughout, Bienen's fiction is intelligent, knowledgeable, ironic, compassionate, and totally believable.